Tony's movie, The Wedding Bride, is released. It turns out to be based entirely around the wedding between Ted and Stella and Tony's involvement. However, in the movie, Ted is a villian and Tony is a hero. The gang all see the movie and reflect upon it.

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Future Ted discusses with his children how everyone in their thirties tends to have "baggage," which then manifests itself in Ted's mind when he discovers it, and labeled baggage is shown onscreen. He talks about dating a girl named Royce who seems to have no baggage, despite several false starts in his apartment. The gang discuss their own baggage; even Marshall has baggage - he is just too nice and trusting. Ted then sees a new movie called The Wedding Bride with Royce and discovers it is based on his relationship with Stella and was written by Tony, the man Stella left him for, and his character, "Jed Mosely," is portrayed in a negative light (and one of the actors is even heard to call him "Ted Mosby" at the end of the film). He points out several of the aspects which were initially romantic, but twisted so that he comes off as a jerk. Royce also helps him realize that he has his own baggage: being left at the altar. His friends also tell him that he should tell Royce the truth, but Ted believes he can ignore it despite the movie becoming the 5th highest grossing movie of all time. Ted becomes angry and upset as the movie goes on to become a hit, and when Royce's friends talk about going to see the film again he finally snaps and walks out on her.

Marshall ultimately helps him cope with it, reminding Ted that he is fundamentally a nice guy. Ted rushes to the cinema where Royce is again watching the film and admits the film was based on his being left at the altar. He kisses Royce in front of the screen displaying a kiss scene from The Wedding Bride and takes her back to his apartment for pancakes. Royce then reveals her "baggage" - left at the altar three times, has a gambling addiction, and shares a bed with her brother. Ted asks her to leave.

Everything Royce and her friends mock Jed Mosley for are embarrassing things about Ted, including having a butterfly tattoo, first seen in Wait For It, having red cowboy boots, first seen in Everything Must Go, pronouncing "encyclopedia" pretentiously, as seen in Intervention, and getting beaten up by a goat, as seen in The Leap.

However, it is unclear how Tony knew about the incident with the goat, as Stella left Ted for him before it occurred, in Shelter Island.

The notion of a person having a "but..." was previously discussed in Little Boys.

Barney has always had an issue with women in their 30s, as seen previously in Little Boys, Intervention, and Zoo or False.

Future Ted censors the story for his kids again, saying that Barney said "kiss" instead of "fuck". He does this for other dirty words and inappropriate activities throughout the series, usually by saying "eating a sandwich" to mean smoking marijuana, which he first uses in How I Met Everyone Else.

Ted and Robin salute after Ted says "Major baggage", an inside joke between them first mentioned in Slapsgiving.

The key moments from Ted and Stella's relationship the movie re-writes to make Ted out to be the bad guy include their two-minute date in Ten Sessions, Ted's proposal with a stuffed animal in an arcade in Miracles, and Ted inviting Tony to the wedding in Shelter Island.

The movie version of Stella wears the same dress at her wedding to Jed Mosley that the real Stella wears in Shelter Island.

Barney claims that the movie got everything right about Stella's relationship with Ted, who is depicted as the villain, despite him being his best friend whom he displays sympathy for when he is left at the altar in Shelter Island. It is shown in The Stinsons that Barney always roots for films' intended antagonists.

Future Ted mentioned that Tony would find success as a screenwriter with his film The Wedding Bride in As Fast As She Can.

Robin informs the gang that The Wedding Bride is the second-most popular film in North Korea, after some propaganda footage of Kim Jong-il riding a horse through a field. She mentions in The Front Porch that this footage gets higher ratings than her show.

This is not the first time that a member of the group unintentionally helped robbers ransack an apartment. Though Robin criticizes Marshall for being "too nice" and doing it here, she and Barney help several people "move out" of their apartment when trying to complete the Murtaugh List in Murtaugh.

In Perfect Week, Jim Nantz claimed, that Barney never slept with a fatty. However in the last scene of this episode, one fat woman in the back carries a baggage called "Slept with Barney" (as some other women in this scene).

A possible explanation is that the woman got fat after her encounter with Barney, allowing the statement to remain true. He also could have slept with her after the events of Perfect Week.

Jim Nantz may have lied, as he is a figure of Barneys imagination.

The episode mentions the fight with the goat, however when the fight happened it was Ted's 31st birthday. He was no longer with Stella, she could not know about it.

It is also true, however, that Ted has been in contact with Tony (and/or Stella), the screenwriter of the film, at least once (the time he accepts the job of architecture professor at university), which could slightly imply that he has let it slip to him.

In the episode As Fast As She Can, Ted has acted out like a hero when he saved Stella and Tony's relationship by talking to Tony. He also refused all the offers by Tony. It is highly improbable that after Ted has been so cool, and so integral to their relationship becoming this successful, that they would repay their gratitude by making such a film.

Three possibilities - From his perspective, Tony actually believes that his story is the true story, or Tony wrote an accurate story but Hollywood changed it, or Ted's version of events, as he relates them, paint him in a much more favorable light than the actual events as they transpired (although given Ted's character, they are obviously not anywhere near as bad as portrayed in the film).

Marshall said that he thought that the movie Spaceballs was about him.

The "baggages" in the background include being a fan of the Chicago Cubs, believing that Elvis Presley is still alive and "Slept with Barney".

Jed Mosely's catchphrase in the The Wedding Bride was also one of Josh Radnor's lines in Not Another Teen Movie:"No can dosville, babydoll", also in The Leap Ted uses the catchphrase 'no can dos' when Marshall asked him went to the roof.

Amanda Sloane Murray of IGN gave the episode a grade of 9.3. She stated that the concept of a romantic comedy within a romantic comedy was a challenge for the writers, given the task of creating a fictional movie for the episode and casting actors who have themselves played characters in romantic comedies. [2]